I reformatted my C: drive and ever since Windows will not recognize my Seagate External Free Agent hard drive. It shows up under ?My Computer? as Removable Disk (I: )? It used to be listed as Seagate Free Agent (I: ). When I go to explore I get a message telling me to insert a disk. Usually when the device is connected, Windows XP brings up the message box asking what to open the disk with. It no longer does that. The disk shows up in Device Manager and says it is working fine. When go to Manage from My Computer and select Disk Management., Seagate shows up but without it?s letter. When you right click on the device to change the path, it only says Help instead options. Also, in Disk Management, it designates disk 2 as removable disk II) and disk 3 is Seagate Free Agent with no letter designation. I have all of my backup software, programs, mail backup, artwork and data on this drive and sadly did not back it up. I need to access this drive. Please, can you help my to get windows XP to connect to the device? I have tried a gazillion suggestions and nothing has worked.

Hi,
Have you tried uninstalling your seagate free agent software, restarting your computer and installing it again?

Connect it to your old computer, to see if the backup-copy can be accessed and verified.

Go to http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads/ and select your product then you can download any documentation and drivers that you need.

First make sure that you have a bootable Windows Vista installation DVD, as you will be unable to use your computer if you don’t. Next, download the GParted Live CD and burn it to cd.
Boot off the GParted cd, and you will see your hard drives in the drop-down list. The first drive is typically your boot drive, but you can check the Flags column to make sure.


Next you’ll need to right-click on the partition and choose Resize/Move from the menu.


Now you can either use the New Size textbox, or just click and drag the partition to make it smaller (or bigger). When you are done, click the Resize/Move button.This doesn’t immediately apply the changes, though. You can make other changes to your partitions and then when you are finished click the Apply button.Depending on the amount of data and the speed of your computer, it can take quite a while to resize the partitions. On my computer it took more than 30 minutes.


Once it’s done, quit, remove the live cd and then reboot your computer. Unless you are very lucky, you’ll be greeted with this horrible error message saying “Windows Failed to start. A recent hardware or software change might be the cause.”
Hope this helps!

You better check with the Seagate people. This seems to be a problem with the casing. And since you're under warranty, you can get a replacement.

The problem is because Mac cannot write to NTFS formatted drives. You will have to reformat the drive in Mac. You will loose all the data :( Here is a link for the how to:

http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=174395

Hello,
If you can see the drive in Applications --> utilities --> Disk Utility, then you will be able to reformat it in the Mac OS format and read it.
Good day, Damien

hmm, no problem plugging in either side, just be sure to do the power cable first. What's doing the beep, beep?

Found a guy who had similar prob, here was his solution:
Go to Control Panel. Click on Device Manager.
Check to see if FreeAgent is shown as a disk drive.
If not, check the device list for any Free Agent device, double click and check driver. No driver installed? Update does not work? On the driver tab….click uninstall device.
Shut down computer. Unplug Free agent USB and power at the drive.
Reboot computer. As it is rebooting, plug in the power cord. Wait a minute or two….then plug in USB cord.

Windows will “found new device” ….. Just let the computer complete the reboot.
Then go to the device manager. Chances are you will find Free Agent in the drives….and in the USB list of devices. Open windows explorer….and you should see you Free Agent as a drive.
Windows will ask you to install manufacturer disk. You have no disk…non needed. Windows has installed the device. Just click on close. I you keep getting windows wants to install device…..ignore it. You can click on “don’t ask again”. (That is if your Free Agent drive is showing in the device manager as a disk…and in windows explorer….along with your other drive or drives.)
If at some later time….your Free Agent drive does not appear….repeat the steps as listed above.
(You may think it is not working….or that it has gone bad. Try this before you try to return.)
Seagate Tools…the new version….does not recognize to diagnose the Free Agent….
I have not tried Seagate Tools after getting the computer to recognize the drive.
I am surprised Seagate does not provide a Tool to recognize their own drives…and install and/or test Free Agent.

This does work for me with Vista. Thought I had lost the drive…. Seagate should provide a patch or a drive that Windows will recognize when you get the “found new hardware” and Windows asks you to insert manufacturer’s installation disk. I do not understand why that is not already there….a driver file for Free Agent...that Windows would install.

I did not buy Pro….because I did not need the backup software. I wonder if those who bought Pro are having these problems.

465.66 x 1024 x 1024 x 1024 = 499,998,617,764 bytes. The problem is the definition of gigabytes.

i have the same problem, would a new enclosure work?